This blog explores individuals and organizations that are evolving by practicing self-reflection, participating in training and development, and building and sustaining communities. Visit regularly for a dose of Becoming.

07/27/2013

This week Marjorie Winther is in the hot seat! I met Marjorie years ago through networking
and a few friends in the training and development field, and she’s been
providing me with best practices, and laughs, ever since!

Tell us about a cool project you are currently working on.

It’s hard to pick just one. At work my favorite project is teaching a
program I designed called “Boots to Suits” for people who get promoted from the
street crews into management. I spend 5 days with the group, balanced between
working on leadership skills and pulling in experts to teach segments on
employment law and other practical matters.
We talk a lot about positivity and reframing. We get very close over the course of the program.
There is a lot of learning and also a lot of laughter and lot of sharing
stories.

Outside of work, I have been competing
in story slams through first person arts.
Each slam has a theme, and you write a 5 minute true story on the theme.
Twice a year all the slam winners compete in a grand slam. I won the first one
I did. The theme was Burned. I wrote about my first year teaching when I
accidentally set a little boy on fire. But the story is about more than that;
it’s really about what to do when you don’t know what to do, how to handle
situations that you are not prepared for.
(If you want to see it, go to http://www.firstpersonarts.org/tag/summer-grand-slam/)

What I love about the stories, is I free
write and then rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. By about the fourth draft I
figure out what the story is about. I always try to find a theme that is larger
than me. I used to do stand up, so my
stories always have jokes in them—I am addicted to that feeling of hearing an
audience laugh hard. It washes over me like love and acceptance. But what I
like about writing and telling stories more than stand up is that I feel I can
go deeper. I’m not constrained to setup/punch. I can develop a story and let
the funny part lead to something.

Through my first person networks I have
been invited to do stories at various venues. I recently did a show called
“Risk!” that was part of the Free Library Author’s Events. There is a moment in the story where I
realize my marriage is over and I am on my own—and my favorite line is: “I
thought I would be alone forever, because I know I am not all that. But
apparently, I am all this.”

The audience broke into wild applause. I
felt great because I think I touched something we all feel. The need to dispute
that “not good enough” message that we all have.

How would you describe yourself? What words would you use? What
is your brand?

Oh boy. Can I steal your theme and
describe myself as “becoming?”

No? Okay. Warm. Adventurous. Authentic. Silly. I manage to carve out a niche for myself
professionally but commit to being authentic and taking risks. What that means at work is creating
experiential activities in the classroom that might be seen as goofy but doing
them anyway, if there is a point to them.
Like the rubber chicken throwing activities to teach small team/large
team processing.

What are you passionate about? What type of work makes you jump out of bed
in the morning and/or stay up late at night?

See answer one. Writing stories
and thinking about what my experiences have taught me about life. At work, it’s helping people be more positive
about their working relationships. Helping people get out of the right/wrong
box and shift perspective.

What is your source of inspiration? What drives you forward?

I seem to be driven by aneed
for attention. But also, the real desire to help people connect across
boundaries, whether racial or gender or just union/management. What do we have in common and how can we have
a richer experience of life by knowing each other.

How do you see yourself evolving, or "becoming", in the next year?
In the next 3 years?

I would like to keep
writing and see where it takes me. I have some dreams but I am too
superstitious to put them in writing.
And, I don’t know. Maybe fall in love. I’m also working on my fitness
goals. I have lost a lot of weight in the two years since my marriage broke up.
I want to continue down that path and start doing more physical activity. I
just signed up for a rowing the Schuylkill class that I am excited about.